Amph (Oh Hell No) Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I never really see much marketing for the new cartoon or the cartoon's products/toys. My son has a few TMNT clothes, but they depict the classic cartoon Turtles.

 

Do not see this movie. It is ridiculous.

Those turtles killed so many people(have we started on the collateral damage argument yet?). Raphael uses a shipping container as a baseball bat. Later, he punches a dude straight in the head and the guy goes flying. That same punch turned a block of concrete into dust. How could they even know how to hold back? They've only ever fought each other. The Turtles--especially Raph--are enormous monsters capable of incredible feats of strength, and they're turning Foot soldiers faces into pudding the entire movie, gleefully taunting their victims all the way. It's horrific.

 

The toy line--which is very well done IMO; at least the action figures--seems to be doing quite well. And I've spotted the newest animated Turtles on various food items (mac and cheese, fruit snacks). But it seems like nothing is merchandised as heavily these days as it was when I was a kid. Pop culture is so fractured, so fragmented, that nothing really dominates the way the Turtles did back in the late 80s/early 90s anymore.

 

I guess that's true. Frozen is a mega hit, but I never see commercials for Frozen toys. But in the 90s, you couldn't look at a TV for more than 10 minutes without catching ads for TMNT, Batman, Spiderman, etc action figures, vehicles, costumes etc

 

Harry Potter is the last "kids" thing that I can recall that came along and just became a merchandising juggernaut (well, Cars did as well for a long time). When I was a kid, even TV shows like The Fall Guy got their own lunchboxes. It was just a different world I guess.

 

A lot of kids these days aren't interested as much in toys as they used to be. Between video games, computers and other tech devices, plus the efforts to get kids to get off their asses, this is why things are so different. Not to mention that toys don't last long on shelves, before being replaced by repaints and retools a retailers don't want stuff sitting on shelves for years that they can't move.

 

Yeah, if it wasn't for adult collectors (like me), I'm not sure the action figure side of things would even survive at retail for much longer. My 5-year old nephew has some, but they aren't the focus of his playtime the way they were for my brother and I growing up.

 

Adult collectors help, but the true target audience is the kids. You and I come from a different era, where action figures were on the rise in the 70's and 80's and reached their peak in the 90's. The cost of living and the cost of action figures play a part, but not the whole in the way things are.

 

Yeah, it's just a totally different world these days. The gap between my Brother's childhood experience and that of my Nephew likely rivals the cultural gap between he and his Father when he was that age. But, I guess these things are exponential.

 

Just got back from seeing it. It's one of those odd movies that's actually somehow greater than the sum of its parts--its parts being individually weak or ill-conceived. It sort of entertains on the same level as the similarly mishandled G.I. Joe films. And perhaps most important of all, the kids in my audience flat-out loved it.

Pros

- Good score and surprisingly little use of pop music.
- Megan Fox gives an energetic and likeable performance.
- William Fitchner is good, as always.
- The humor is hit or miss, but it's good natured and more or less true to the various characters.
- Some real bright spots; The much talked about elevator scene, Raphael's confession/speech near the end.

Cons

- The origin change is okay, I guess, but Splinter learned ninjitsu from a book?
- Speaking of Splinter, maybe it's because I'm used to him having a Japanese accent, but Tony Shalhoub's voice just doesn't fit the character and they never quite manage to make him look photo-real.
- Not crazy about the voice actors chosen for the turtles. I think they're rendered really well. They feel like they're there, taking up space. But the designs are just awful.
- Shredder. Just a fail on every level.
- It's too April-centric.

Overall a 6/10 that might come down to a 5.5/10 after I sleep on it.

 

Yeah, it would have been better if that business guy is the Shredder, some Japanese martial artist criminal lord is just too chessy in a live action movie.

 

Still debating on watching it. Probably going to say these 2 and half minutes below get the point across far better than a 2 hour Bay movie will.

 

My problem with Shredder was more that he was extremely underdeveloped and then turned into Iron Man in Samurai armor. He wasn't a character, he was a final boss in a video game. And having the Foot reimagined as a military unit didn't make any sense either. If you've got a movie where the heroes are talking anthropomorphic ninja turtles, and you're embracing the fact that the villain is a ninja/samurai/whatever, why blanch at making the Foot ninjas?

 

Yeah, the business guy should just be the Shredder, he was well developed.

 

For the longest time, speculation was that William Fichtner's Eric Sachs character was actually Shredder. In hindsight, maybe they should've just combined the two characters. Make Sachs Oroku Saki instead, introduce him as a business man/philanthropist/scientist and keep the reveal the same. It would actually make the connection between Shredder and Splinter/the Turtles personal once again.

 

Speaking of Sachs...what was his motivation again? They establish that Shredder virtually raised him. Okay, cool. He wants to help Shredder take over the world. Except then he tells the turtles that his company is going to receive a "blank check" from the government, and he'll be hailed as a hero. And Shredder is fine with this. It's their plan together. Shredder even tells Sachs that he will then "have his money" at one point. Um, don't know if you've been paying attention, but Sachs lives in an enormous mountain estate. He owns, from all appearances, absolutely everything in the city, and he's funding the largest crime organization around with military grade equipment. So...Shredder's going to let this guy foil him so he can get a bunch of money? What does Shredder get out of this deal? I thought they were working together. How does this secure Shredder as...wait. What was Shredder even attempting to accomplish? Sachs explains to the turtles that this toxin will show that the Foot Clan are capable of killing millions and millions of people with ease...but then he's going to turn over the antidote to the government, and with that, all of the Clan's power.

So. All right. There must be some cause. They're fanatics, presumably. America needs to be punished for its capitalism or something...no? Nothing? There's no explanation aside from, a long time ago, the Foot, I guess, poisoned the water supply of the Japanese and ruled them. Is that...I don't understand. Who even is Shredder? Why does he want to kill so many people? Why does he want to allow Sachs to cure it?

And all he wants to do with the mutagen is make a cure? He could have an army of (insert mutated animal here) monsters with human intelligence (and somewhat superhuman intelligence--Donnie has made holograms! What!) at his disposal. I assume this will happen with the sequels when they introduce Bebop and Rocksteady.

What a stupid movie.

 

To quote the movie "Well, when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous."

Sachs' motivation I get... kinda. He's been helping the police to stop a crime crisis he himself helped create, and has thus been held up as a hero in the public eye. This "Gas the city" plan is the next step in making himself a hero by solving a problem he created. I get the sense that's what he really craves. Admiration. The money is just cheese on the pizza, I suppose . Where it falls apart is when you add Shredder into the mix. What does he get out of this deal? He and Sachs create a crisis, Sachs publically gets credit for subverting it, gets a blank check, and somehow this helps Shredder to rule the city?

It makes me think that Sachs was indeed originally supposed to be Shredder, but an outcry from fans caused a last minute change and a more traditional incarnation of Shredder (well, a Japanese version at least) was spot welded onto the script without things being thought through.

 

I still think it's cheesy to let a corrupted businessman to be some ninja criminal lord's student and pawn.

 

The movie does feel to me like Sacks was originally supposed to be Shredder, there's big bad confusion abounding and aside from, like, one or two scenes with Sacks talking to Shredder, they aren't integrated into the action together all that well. Take away the one bit with Sacks chatting with Shredder it's Clark Kent / Superman syndrome. If you dig around, apparently the DS Game has Sacks as Shredder, and game development takes a long time so maybe the game was working on an early version of the script.

 

I think the whole idea that Fichtner was actually Shredder was planted back when that leaked early script--the one that changed the Turtles from mutants to aliens--featured a (presumably white, but certainly not Japanese) Army officer named "Colonel Schrader".

 

i can tell you all one thing....if i ever discover that my job is controlled by a bunch of genocidal maniacs who want to create bioweapons and decide to burn down my science lab, i'm definitely taking my 8 year old daughter along for the ride. //tmntlogic